Beginning with an Indian attack on one of Henry Hudson's crewmen—who in 1609 became the first recorded fatality of an act of war in the region's history—historian Steven H. Jaffe offers an alternative history of New York City, describing each of the city's encounters with war over the past four centuries. He portrays the city as arguably the most powerful and yet also the most vulnerable on earth, a place whose landscape, culture, and inhabitants have been shaped by violence near and far.

"Foreign foes have rarely attacked New York directly, but the city has been profoundly involved in the nation's many military conflicts. As Steven Jaffe shows in this novel and absorbing study, Gotham has been banker and arsenal, staging ground and recruiting post, cheerleader and critic, fortification and tempting target. Seen in a series, the wartime experiences are strikingly different, and Jaffe respects each war story's particularity. But he's also good at spotting commonalities, the most intriguing being the way wars abroad become wars at home, with New York's polyglot citizenry battling over a conflict's legitimacy, or which combatant to back."—Mike Wallace